What happens after we have registered?

Once you have completed a Registration form and sent this to you Diocesan Representative and the form has been processed by the Parish Giving Scheme you will receive a Welcome letter giving you your Parish Code. Please make sure that the name of your Church/Parish and PGS Parish code stated on the letter are completed clearly on the PGS Gift Forms you distribute. This will ensure that new gifts are administered without delay and donations are returned to the correct parish.

Helpful hints and tips

Changes to Parish Registration details

Should any of the details you have provided us with on the registration form change in the future please inform the PGS as soon as possible.

Gift Forms

Please make sure that the name of your Church/Parish and PGS Parish code stated above, are completed clearly on the PGS Gift Forms you distribute. This will ensure that new gifts are administered without delay and donations are returned to the correct parish.

Please ensure PGS receives new donor forms at least one month before the requested start date. Please do not send gift forms to PGS in bulk.

To ensure that the PGS complies with policy standards for record keeping requirements please do not:

PGS will securely retain the appropriate record which complies with Data Protection principles.

Why can't we photocopy the Gift forms

The Parish Giving scheme needs to be able to demonstrate version control and reduce risks of circulating old version forms or out of date information.

The PGS gift form contains useful information which is intended for the donor to read and hopefully reduce operational queries received by the small PGS admin team. There is a risk that this information would become detached from the

donor detail and mandate page if it is copied.

We also wanted to portray a professional image and brand by providing the donor with a quality form (we have no control over the quality of a photocopy).

The PGS is a direct debit originator with an approved service user number (SUN), we are only authorised to accept written direct debit mandates; an additional verification software package (with a cost) would be required to collect mandates via another source. That said, this is another functionality we are exploring.

When PGS was originally given a ‘SUN’ it was agreed with the bank that we would only accept and retain copies of original mandates to ensure we complied with the Direct Debit controls regarding mandate format.

Statements

If you have provided us with an email address you will receive an email allocating you a username and password. Once the first gift is collected your report on giving will be published on the website on the 10th of each month and will remain accessible for you to view and download for 6 months. If no email address has been provided, you will be unable to view your statements.

The PGS creates in excess of 1,000 monthly statements and claims gifts from over 20,000 donors. To ensure the PGS continues to operate efficiently, the PGS would be grateful if you could perform a monthly check to ensure your statement and the payments into your PCC bank account are correct, and notify us immediately with any anomalies.

Please note that it’s difficult for the PGS team to allocate time to resource requests for multiple back dated copy statements and to rework historic anomalies with gift/Gift Aid payments.

To support ongoing relationships between Parish and Donor and to help you keep your donors informed of the total gifts they have made, your online report will provide you with end of the tax year and end of calendar year information. PGS will of course supply these accumulative figures to any anonymous donors if they contact us directly. Please make a note of any ‘leavers’ and their total donation amounts as at present they are removed from the statements when the direct debit is cancelled. We hope to rectify this in the near future.

Payment Timings

The PCC nominated bank account will receive two bank transfers each month; one for the amount of gifts and one for the qualifying Gift Aid. On or before the 10th of each month[1] only the amount of the gifts collected through the PGS will be paid into the PCC nominated bank account. You will continue to receive a monthly statement on or before the 10th of the month for your parish which details separately the amount of the gifts, qualifying Gift Aid and the total for both. Once the qualifying Gift Aid claim for the month has been received in the PGS bank account from HMRC, we will instruct a bank transfer to pay the qualifying Gift Aid (as detailed on the monthly statement) to the PCC nominated bank account. This transfer will be made within two working days of the PGS receiving it.[2]

Anonymous Donors

Please inform your donors that should they wish to remain anonymous to their Parish Giving Representative this will mean that only the PGS administrator will know their identity, which may impact on the Parishes ability to communicate with the anonymous donors on an individual basis.

The PGS is happy to forward any generic communication such as a ‘thank you’ message to anonymous donors on your behalf; all you need to do is send us your communication, together with a stamped envelope and PGS contact number. PGS will add the address and send it to your anonymous donor/s but does not have the resource available to personalise each letter with individual donor information. If you would like to communicate directly with your donors, please ensure that you request contact details from them when you introduce the scheme.

Changes

Please encourage your donors to contact the PGS team directly with any query or change relating to their gift, personal/contact details, bank account, Direct Debit, Gift Aid eligibility etc. The majority of changes and queries can be resolved easily and quickly over the phone. Regrettably, on many occasions, donors contact their bank to make a change to their donation amount and cancel their Direct Debit in error.

Couples donations

We welcome gifts from couples. However, for the purpose of Gift Aid we only require one signature, title and initials on the Gift Aid declaration. The signature must be from the eligible individual who pays sufficient tax to cover the gift. To ensure compliance with HMRC guidelines, please encourage donors to notify us immediately if there is any change to their Gift Aid eligibility. If a donor is unsure of whether or not they are eligible to claim Gift Aid please suggest that they do not sign a Gift Aid declaration. It is easier for PGS to back date a Gift Aid claim at a later date and make an extra payment to the Parish rather than request Gift Aid claimed in error back from the Parish and then refund it back to HMRC.

[1]If the 10th of the month falls on a weekend or a bank/public holiday, the parish will receive only the amount of the gifts in their bank account on the last working day before the 10th of the month.

[2]Weekends and bank/public holidays are classed as non-working days. Once the PGS instructs a bank transfer, a minimum of three working days is required to transfer funds from the PGS bank account to the nominated parish bank account.